Philadelphia at Twins. Phillies 2, Twins 1.

In the 6th inning of today's game, the Twins gave Brad Radke something he hadn't had in four starts: a lead. The Twins have been awfully stingy, run-wise, with their ace—they'll put up 6 runs for Seth Greisinger or Carlos Silva, but with poor Radke their bats seem to call for a holiday:

Bat One: "Hey, Radke's pitching! Let's go to the beach!"
Bat Two: "Woo-hoo! I'll bring the Britney CDs!"

Then in the 6th, Koskie's bat, which probably burns easily, came back to the Dome in time to hit an explosive homer against Roberto Hernadez. But that lead only lasted a half-an-inning; in the 7th Radke finally became human again, put a few Phillies on the bases, and then Ricky Ledee continued his policy of kicking our asses, hitting a game-tying single.

Yesterday, loyal and perceptive Batgirl reader Al asked if the Twins knew that you can actually score runs if there are less than two out. Today, they seemed to have forgotten you can score runs at all. See, the object of baseball is to score more runs than the other team. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. The Twins obviously have forgotten this tenet of the game, because they stranded more runners on base today than BatMom broke hearts in college. Certainly, Devil Ray-cum-Phillie pitcher Paul Abbott had much better stuff than the last time we faced him but we had runners on in every inning but the sixth today, and, devastatingly, the lead-off man on in the second, third, fourth, eighth and ninth without a run scoring. We left 11 on base today; Matt LeCroy himself left on four. Come on Twinsies, rampantly leaving guys on base is so last week. We're living in the now!

So, yeah, this wasn't our best game, offensively--really, there's no excuse for having lost it, except that we did--and one might understand if Radke, the best 4-4 pitcher in baseball, starts getting a tad edgy around his teammates. Or at least around their bats—whenever they get back from the beach.